


The Queen of Broken Hearts

by DesertSnowQueen



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Akumatized Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Alice in Wonderland References, Chameleon Salt, Gen, Lila sucks, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Photographs, Photographs that minors should not have, Sexual Harassment, She's the Queen of Hearts what do you expect?, ml salt fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-10-04 03:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17296964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertSnowQueen/pseuds/DesertSnowQueen
Summary: Lila crosses a line, Alya breaks Marinette's heart, and our favorite heroine gets akumatized. Marinette deserves better than this, but she'll use her powers the way she wants to use them.





	1. The Girl in the Photographs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheBuejay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBuejay/gifts).



> This is all TheBueJay's fault, which is why I'm gifting it to her. She mentioned an idea she had of an akumanette that she wanted me to write, and this was born. (Okay, maybe it wasn't alllllll her fault, but she gave me the idea and I needed a good enough reason for this akuma to exist.)
> 
> Enjoy!

Marinette knew something was off the moment she walked into school that Monday morning. People were clustered around talking to their friends like usual, but what wasn’t normal was the whispering and the scornful glances some of the girls shot in her direction. What definitely wasn’t normal was the wolfish looks and whistles she received from some of the guys. Her sense of unease only grew, and she reached into her purse to get her phone so she could message Alya before remembering that she had lost her phone at some point on Friday afternoon. She huffed out a breath and desperately looked around for a friendly face who could explain what was going on.

All she saw was a blushing, awkward Adrien who avoided her eye like she would turn him to stone and a very uncomfortable Nino being dragged over to her by a furious Alya. Her best friend looked angrier than Marinette had ever seen any akuma victim, and she resisted the urge to run away from the impending doom she felt.

_Something very, very bad was going to happen._

“Um, hey, Al—” 

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Marinette?” Alya demanded, effectively cutting off Marinette’s greeting. “Did you think that would be cute? Lila said you had been desperate for attention recently, but I never thought you would stoop that low.”

“What are you talking about?” Marinette asked, shifting her weight anxiously. Alya’s glare only deepened.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Dupain-Cheng,” Alya snapped. She pulled Nino’s phone out of his hand and unlocked it, then practically threw it at Marinette. “I’m talking about these!”

Marinette looked down at the phone screen and gasped. It was a picture of her—or someone who looked just like her, since she didn’t remember taking that photo—lounging on a bed, as naked as the day she was born. The girl’s eyes were covered with a pink blindfold the same shade as Marinette’s purse and her black hair (the same shade and length as Marinette’s) was tied into her signature pigtails. She looked up at Alya, her eyes wide with shock.

“Alya, I—”

“How could you send dozens of photos like that to every guy in school? I’m surprised you didn’t just put them online at that rate,” Alya yelled. She obviously didn’t care about everyone in the courtyard listening to their argument as she looked at Marinette in disgust. “Not all of the guys in school are single, Marinette, and some of them aren’t even into girls. What were you thinking last night? Some of them, like Nino, have known you for years! And what about Adrien? Does he even know you like him? Does he even like you like that? I thought you helped him out on a date with Kagami!”

“Alya, please—” 

“What can you possibly have to say for yourself, Marinette? I never should have turned a blind eye at those photos on the wall, or the schedule! I never thought you would resort to this level of—” 

“Alya, those photos aren’t of me!” Marinette finally yelled, interrupting her best friend’s rant with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t take those, and I certainly didn’t send them! I lost my phone on Friday!”

“How convenient,” Alya sneered. “Of course you lost your phone. But those photos sure look like you! Right down to the color of the blindfold. I’ve seen strips of fabric that exact shade in your room dozens of times. And if you didn’t send them, who did? Are you going to blame Lila for this? She warned me you would when you wouldn’t answer your phone last night after Nino told me about the photos.”

“Alya, I promise it wasn’t me! I don’t know who sent them, but I didn’t! Why don’t you believe me?” Marinette asked. She was trying to keep herself from crying in front of everyone, but she was clearly fighting a losing battle.

“Why would I believe you? I knew you were crazy, girl, but I didn’t think you would actually start harassing people,” Alya snapped. In one smooth motion, she took off the necklace with the ‘Best Friends Forever’ charm Marinette had gotten her for her birthday and threw it on the ground. “I can’t be friends with someone who would harass people, let alone send nudes to her so-called best friend’s boyfriend.”

“Alya!” Marinette cried, kneeling to pick up the charm. She held it tightly and looked up at her best friend, but Alya was already dragging Nino away. All she could see were the same disapproving glares and appraising stares she had seen when she first walked into school, only now it was ten times worse. Now she knew why they were all looking at her. She wiped the tears from her cheeks as she stood up and ran to the locker room where she could hide. There were people in the main locker room, however, so she darted into the bathroom instead.

Marinette glanced at her reflection in the mirror and sobbed. All she could see was that stranger in the photo that everyone thought was her. She wiped her eyes and tried to take a deep breath to calm down, but the door opened behind her and she whirled around to see who it was.

“I tried to warn you, Marinette,” Lila said. Her voice was sickly sweet, and just hearing it made Marinette’s stomach churn. “You wouldn’t like me as your enemy. It didn’t have to come to this, though. All you had to do was stand by me instead of continuing your pathetic attempts at exposing my lies to these idiots. I didn’t even have to try to convince them you would send those photos. All I had to do was occasionally tell them I didn’t mind you bullying me because you must just be looking for attention like Chloe and they fell for it hook. Line. And sinker.”

“You sent the photos,” Marinette forced out, her voice cracking on the last word. She didn’t want to give Lila the satisfaction of seeing her cry, but she wasn’t sure she would have a choice.

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but considering they came from your phone number…you have no way to prove it wasn’t you,” Lila taunted.

“Who is the girl in them? They aren’t photos of me,” Marinette demanded.

“Some girl who owed me a favor. It was a pity her eyes weren’t blue like yours though. A sweet, wide-eyed stare from a set of blue eyes would have really sold the photos, but alas! She had dark brown eyes, so we had to use a blindfold. It was just lucky I found one in the same awful shade of pink as your bag,” Lila said. “I just had to fiddle with the stitches a little and no one would know the difference between something you threw together and something made by an actual professional.”

“You’re a horrible excuse for a person,” Marinette gasped as more tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m going to find a way to prove you did this.”

“How? _You’re_ the one in all of the photos,” Lila sneered. She turned to leave but stopped to pull Marinette’s phone out of her bag. “By the way, I found that by your locker. You’re lucky I grabbed it! It could have fallen into the wrong hands. You really should be more careful, especially with those photos on there.”

Lila tossed the phone to Marinette, who barely managed to catch it before it hit the ground and shattered. Then she turned on her heel and left the bathroom with a wicked smile on her face, leaving Marinette alone to cry.

“Oh, don’t cry, Marinette,” Tikki said as she zipped out of Marinette’s purse. “I know it looks bad now, but it’ll be okay!”

“How, Tikki? Lila was right. There’s really no way to prove it wasn’t me,” Marinette sobbed. “She, she already convinced everyone it was…even Alya didn’t believe me…she’s supposed to be my best friend! How, how could she think I would do that?”

“I, I don’t know how,” Tikki admitted, “but I know we’ll come up with a plan! You’re Marinette, remember? You’re Ladybug! You can do anything!”

“I can’t get my best friend to listen to me, I can’t confess to my crush, I can’t stand up for myself, I can’t stop Lila…” Marinette trailed off as her voice cracked again and sunk to the floor. She pulled out the chain she was wearing with her half of the ‘Best Friends Forever’ heart charm on it and held it in the same hand as Alya’s, the two charms close but not touching. She remembered the day she had given Alya hers as clearly as if it was yesterday. They had gone out with the whole class—sans Sabrina, Chloe, and Lila since she was ‘out of town’ at the time—to see a movie and then brought her to the park where Marinette and Nino had planned a surprise party their parents agreed to set up for them. Marinette had been the one to pick Alya up from her house and had been so excited to give Alya her gift that she made her open it before they even left to meet the others. The gift included Alya’s half of the charm—since Marinette was already wearing hers—and a Rena Rouge themed jacket with red and black spotted lining stitched into the jacket by hand with light green paw prints, and a darker green turtle shell embroidered in the lining over her heart. Alya had worn the jacket and the charm all day. Marinette started crying harder at the thought of what Alya might do to the jacket when she got home, if she hadn’t thought to destroy it already…

“Oh, come on, Marinette! We can come up with a plan! I know we can! What about the GPS in your phone? If we pull that up, surely we can prove that you didn’t have it this weekend!” Tikki encouraged. Marinette shook her head.

“That won’t prove anything…there’s no real evidence that I was home all weekend except for my parents saying so…and it wouldn’t matter, Tikki! There will always be people who won’t believe it wasn’t me! Lila sent those photos to everyone in school…” Marinette sobbed. She cried into her knees for a moment, then seemed to choke on her breath as she thought of something. “Oh my god…what if she sent them to all of the guys in my contact list! That means Luka has them…and what if she sent them to my family too? Surely my parents would have said something, but what if she didn’t send those until this morning…”

“Marinette, please. I understand why you’re upset about this and you have every right to be, but I really need you to calm down,” Tikki urged. “If you don’t, you’ll attract—”

“An akuma,” Marinette said. Her voice was resigned as the sound of a butterfly’s wings filled the room. “Tikki, take the earrings and go.”

“What? No!” Tikki protested.

“Tikki, now!” Marinette ordered. “I’ve avoided Hawkmoth’s akumas multiple times already…there’s no way I’m getting away from it this time. You have to go and tell Chat Noir I won’t make it to the fight. I can’t risk Hawkmoth getting the earrings. You have to hide—”

Marinette was cut off as the akuma landed on the broken ‘Best Friends Forever’ charms in her palm. She was surprised the single akuma had managed to engulf both charms but her focus was ripped from those thoughts as a soothing but somewhat familiar voice filled her head.

“Queen of Hearts, I am Hawkmoth,” the voice said. Marinette didn’t even notice Tikki pull one earring out of her ear. “Your so-called friends have all gone mad, choosing to believe the worst about you despite your efforts to do good. They would rather believe a liar than their everyday Ladybug. You gave them everything, and in one fatal blow, all of that was forgotten. They abandoned you. They broke your heart, and now I’m giving you the chance to show them what they've done.”

“And all I have to do in return is defeat Ladybug and Chat Noir for you?” Marinette asked. Tikki flew behind her and took the other earring away before zipping out through the bathroom window, making sure Marinette—and by extension, Hawkmoth—would not be able to see her leave.

“Precisely,” Hawkmoth purred. “Defeat Ladybug and Chat Noir and Paris will be your Wonderland. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes, Hawkmoth,” Marinette agreed.

She closed her eyes, and her enemy’s magic washed over her.

~*~*~*~

“Alya, don’t you think you could’ve gone easier on Marinette?” Adrien asked after Marinette ran into the bathroom in tears. He wanted to go after her, to make sure she wouldn’t give in to one of Hawkmoth’s akumas, but it wouldn’t do much good if he didn’t de-escalate the situation first. It was one thing for him to not have said anything when Marinette complained to him about Lila lying to their friends, but it was another for her to have to face her best friend when Alya was acting like this. Plus, if what Alya had said about Marinette liking him was what he thought it was, he was probably the last person she would want to see right now.

Whether those photos were of her or not. Which, after seeing how upset Marinette got over them, he suspected they weren’t.

“Why should I? What she did was wrong! She’s basically sexually harassing you, Adrien! And you weren’t the only person who got them! She sent them to the entire school!” Alya huffed. She was obviously frustrated that Adrien was siding with Marinette over this.

“But she said she didn’t send the photos,” Adrien pointed out. “Marinette doesn’t lie. She hates liars!”

“She’s lied to everyone often enough,” Alya muttered. “Did she tell you she stole your phone? It was the day Copycat attacked. And it wasn’t for the greater good or to save your feelings or whatever bullshit excuse she made up that day. It was to delete a voicemail she left of her trying to ask you out. And the day Gigantitan attacked? I think that akuma was only there because she had convinced us to piss off your bodyguard so she could get a minute alone with you. And don’t get me started about her bullying Lila by saying she was lying.”

“But Lila was lying,” Adrien insisted. “Lila was lying about everything. Marinette was right.”

“And how do you know that?” Alya demanded. “What is your source?”

“Ladybug gave out to Lila for lying on the Ladyblog about knowing her right in front of me the day she was akumatized into Volpina,” Adrien said. “And speaking of Volpina, she was clearly in the fight on Heroes’ Day. Sabrina even said Ladybug told her so.”

“That could have been anyone that Hawkmoth transformed to fit his plan,” Alya waved off. “And if you knew Lila was lying, why didn’t you say something? It doesn’t exactly sound convincing for you to only bring it up now.”

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think it would make a difference, and I encouraged Marinette to keep quiet about it until Lila’s lies came undone on their own. It was bad advice and she obviously shouldn’t have listened to me,” Adrien said, trailing off at the end. “And it’s unlikely that Hawkmoth transformed someone else into Volpina, since no one except for Rena Rouge and Carapace seemed to be transformed into a different or new akuma for that fight.”

“Well, we don’t know the full extent of Hawkmoth’s powers and he’s obviously more powerful than we thought if he could akumatize so many people at once,” Nino cut in. It seemed he had finally gotten over his discomfort enough to stand up for his girlfriend.

“Nino, you’ve known Marinette for years! Does she really seem like the kind of girl to send those photos?” Adrien asked, turning to his best friend for help.

“I don’t know, man. She’s changed a lot this year. She’s more confident and more outspoken, so maybe this changed too,” Nino shrugged. “If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said hell no. But after this year…I don’t know. There’s just something different about her, and I thought it was a good different but…”

“Have you gone mad?” Adrien asked.

“Oh, Adrien,” a chilling voice cooed from behind him, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “It’s sweet that you would try to stand up for your friend, but your efforts are wasted. They’re all mad here.”

Adrien slowly turned around as the other students screamed and began to run away, completely ignoring all of the drills they learned in their akuma safety courses. Behind him stood a haunting figure. She wore a dress with a short, puffy, layered skirt, a corset top with a sweetheart neckline, and long, black sleeves that puffed out around the shoulders and were skin tight the rest of the way down her arm, stopping at her knuckles where blood red gloves peeked out to cover her fingers. The middle panel of her corset was black, with three blood-red, broken hearts down the center, and the two panels on either side of it had a black and white checkered pattern. Her skirt was three different colors. The top layer was open in the front and solid black with blood red broken hearts like spots on the fabric. The second layer was also open in the front and had a black and white checkered pattern like the panels on her corset. The third layer was a full skirt and was a solid shade of blood red. The rest of the dress around the back of the top and on the puffed part of her sleeves was blood red as well, with little black hearts dotted all over it like Ladybug’s spots. It was trimmed in gold and had a high collar protecting the back and sides of her neck in the same bloody red, just without the heart-shaped dots like the third layer of her skirt. Her raven hair was piled high on her head, and she wore a dazzling gold tiara with seven blood red, heart-shaped jewels embedded in it. The largest heart in the center of the crown was broken, while the three smaller jewels on either side of it were proper hearts. Around her neck was a black choker with the right half of a broken, blood red heart-shaped jewel, and the left half was hanging from a slightly longer gold chain that settled just below the hollow of her throat. Her skin was pure white. In the place of a mask, she had two blood red broken hearts around her eyes. The half of the hearts on the inside corners of her eyes was right side up, but the other half of the hearts on the outside corner of her eyes laid horizontally under them. These outer halves traced her lower eyelids from the spot where the point of one half met the point of the other and dripped down over her shockingly pale cheeks like bloody tears. Her lips were pursed into a permanent pout, and her red lipstick was painted in the shape of a heart. Her legs had the same black and white checkerboard pattern as the panels on her dress, and she wore black, closed-toe high heels on her feet. Finally, in one hand she held a golden scepter with a broken-heart-shaped jewel on top of a glittering, ruby studded gold orb. The akuma was almost completely unrecognizable, but her familiar blue eyes instantly told him who she was.

“Marinette,” he breathed out. He felt his heart breaking just looking at her. She hadn’t deserved this, not over something as stupid as those photographs…

“Marinette isn’t here anymore,” the akuma said with a cold smile. “I am the Queen of Hearts, and I’m here to ensure that the head of every single person that turned their back on me will roll.”


	2. We're All Mad Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who were wondering what Queen of Hearts powers are...they get introduced here. There's a little more to them than what is shown here, but I'm saving that for the next chapter (or two).
> 
> Enjoy!

_“The head of every single person that turned their back on me will roll.”_

That was Marinette’s, no, the Queen of Hearts’ promise to Adrien. That was her threat. And that was what caused the courtyard to erupt into total chaos.

Students rushed towards the front door of the school in a panicked stampede, their screams and footsteps echoing off the walls.

Teachers ran out of their classrooms and Principal Damocles threw open the door to his office to see what was going on.

Adrien raced against the crowd to get into the locker room so he could transform. In doing so, he abandoned Alya and Nino in the center of the courtyard. He also completely missed what happened next.

~*~*~*~

Queen of Hearts raised her free hand to her lips and blew a heart-shaped kiss into the crowd. As it soared overhead, the heart multiplied and split off in various directions, targeting the students closest to the door first to prevent anyone from escaping. As soon as one of the hearts made contact with their skin, the students froze in place. Their eyes widened in terror as Queen of Hearts’ chillingly familiar voice filled their head. They screamed as she took control of their thoughts, of everything they could see and hear, and showed them where they went wrong.

Queen of Hearts showed them all the times they heard Lila speak, or heard about something she had said from another person. She showed them all the times they believed her stories without a sliver of a doubt that any of them weren’t true. And after each instance, she showed them the truth: she showed them Lila admitting to having lied in private. She showed them Ladybug calling out Lila for lying about being friends with her. She showed them Lila hiding in her room for weeks, not going outside for “fear of akumas” and certainly not traveling to Achu or saving Jagged Stone’s kitten. She showed them how Lila threatened Marinette and almost akumatized her, and how Lila grabbed the stray akuma and agreed to work with Hawkmoth. She showed them the truth about everything, including Lila stealing Marinette’s phone out of her bag, calling a girl she knew, and coercing the girl into taking the photos by promising that no one will ever know it was her, right beside Marinette’s memories of staying home all weekend. She revealed how Lila sent the photographs, and after showing them their own memories of Lila saying Marinette just wanted attention and that she would try to blame it on Lila, she showed them how Lila confronted her in the bathroom and admitted to the crime. 

And then the Queen of Hearts started over again from the beginning and made them watch it again and again and again while they cried and screamed and covered their ears and pulled out their hair and begged her to stop, to have mercy, to accept their apologies. 

She ignored them. 

She was done playing nice. When they tried to apologize, she reminded them how she had helped them as Marinette. How she had supported them. How she had gone out of her way to make them feel better. How they had taken her for granted and treated her like dirt. She made them watch all of this on a loop for what felt like hours, until they had truly gone insane.

“We’re all mad here,” the Queen of Hearts’ whisper echoed through their mind like a broken record. It drowned out everything else and finally pushed away the images the students knew they would never truly escape.

And then their hearts broke.

The marks on their skin cracked and splintered and snapped in half, and a wave of blood red magic washed over them, transforming them. When the magic faded, they were students no more.

They were now giant playing cards, with arms and legs and a head shaped to match their suit and weapons to serve as the Queen of Hearts’ army. The Diamonds carried swords with their suit pip forged at the top and sharpened to a deadly point. The Hearts carried military flails with their suit pip dangling from the chain by its point, covered in barbs and spikes. The Spades carried spears with their suit pip at the tip, and the Clubs carried axes where their pip was turned on its side and the flat stem was dangerously sharp. Each new card formed followed the numerical order of the suit until every position except the Queen of the Hearts suit was filled, with the first four students to go mad taking the position of the Aces. After each suit was completed, any new additions to that suit seemed to be created at random.

Alya and Nino watched this unfold in horror. They were rooted where they stood, alternating between keeping their eye on Marinette, no, Queen of Hearts, and watching the agony she was putting their friends, classmates, and even teachers through. Ms. Bustier became the Three of Hearts. Mylene became the Seven of Spades. Principal Damocles transformed into the King of Spades. Nathaniel, who cried and begged Queen of Hearts to accept his apology and believe that he never thought Marinette would actually send those photos, became the Four of Diamonds and moved to stand just behind his Queen.

Queen of Hearts waved her scepter, and her soldiers leapt into action. The Spades moved to guard all the exits. The Clubs climbed the stairs to find anyone still hiding in the classrooms and offices. The Hearts went into the locker room to look for stragglers, and the Diamonds rounded up everyone still in the courtyard that had not been hit by a heart, including Alya, Nino, Chloe, and Lila. Lila was held tightly between two soldiers.

“You don’t have to do this,” Nino said placatingly. “We were wrong to jump to conclusions. We should have tried harder to find out what really happened. We’re sorry.”

“Nino, what are you doing? You can’t reason with an akuma! Besides, she’s just upset because people got mad at her,” Lila said as she tried to wrench her arms free.

“Oh shut up, Rossi,” Chloe snapped. “You’re ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, if you think Marinette would get akumatized instead of owning up to her actions. She’s too much of a goody-two-shoes for that. If she _had_ sent those photos, she would have explained herself before Hawkmoth could even think about sending her one of his pesky little insects.”

“How do you know, Bourgeois?” Lila snapped back.

“I know because I’ve been bullying her for years. If I couldn’t akumatize her, she certainly isn’t going to do something to get herself akumatized,” Chloe said. “She’s not Mr. Pigeon.”

“You know, Chloe, it’s ironic that you’re standing up for Marinette now that it’s too late to make a difference,” Queen of Hearts said, twirling her scepter thoughtfully. “Maybe if you had done that earlier, this wouldn’t have to happen.”

“Marinette, please! I know you’re still in there,” Alya begged.

“You really never listen when other people speak, do you, Alya? It doesn’t matter if they’re an akuma or your so-called best friend…you never listen,” Queen of Hearts said, turning to Alya with a cold, judgmental expression. “Marinette is gone. You broke her. You broke her heart, you broke her trust, and you broke your relationship with her. You were once the source of her bravery, but instead of listening to her when she tried to tell you she had been framed, you decided you already knew best. You exposed her secrets in front of the whole school and in your anger, you believed a new girl over the one who had trusted you with almost everything.”

“Almost?” Alya asked. “I thought we told each other everything? What didn’t she trust me with…?”

“The same thing you didn’t trust her with,” Queen of Hearts said sharply. Alya didn’t have time to reflect on that before the Queen lifted her hand to her lips to blow another kiss.

Alya, Nino, and Chloe each tried to escape by jumping in different directions before the Queen could blow a kiss. They suspected Queen of Hearts would be a difficult villain to defeat and needed to be ready to help Ladybug and Chat Noir when they arrived. They couldn’t do that if they were turned into playing cards. 

Unfortunately for them, Queen of Hearts seemed to anticipate this and had her soldiers grab them before they could so much as get off the ground. Alya was caught by the Four of Diamonds who had moved out from behind Queen of Hearts to grab her, Nino was caught by the Seven of Diamonds, and Chloe was caught by the Queen of Spades. Each card held them so the tip of their weapon was placed near their prisoner’s throat.

“Don’t bother fighting me, you three. I’m the only _queen_ here, and I already know all of your _tricks_. I know all the _ways_ you might try to escape your punishment,” Queen of Hearts said dismissively. Alya and Nino’s eyes widened at her emphasis on three specific words.

_Does she know we’re heroes too?_ Alya thought as she made eye contact with Nino. His panicked expression told her he was thinking the same thing. They desperately tried to struggle out of her soldiers’ grasp, but the cards were holding them too tightly for them to slip free. The only thing their struggling did was move the diamond shaped tip of the sword closer to their necks. When they felt the strange metal of the blood red swords brush against their skin they froze.

“Now, where were we?” Queen of Hearts asked. She blew a kiss to her former friends, and since they couldn’t run away, the bloody hearts landed on their cheeks with ease.

“Let’s start from the beginning, Alya,” Queen of Hearts’ voice whispered. Alya felt a jolt of fear rush through her as she realized she didn’t hear the voice with her ears…it echoed in her head as if it were her own intrusive thought. “It’s a very good place to start. Marinette shared her macaron with you, did she not?”

The first day of school flashed in front of Alya’s eyes, showing her helping a girl with blue eyes and pigtails and telling her that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.

Then Marinette taking her last macaron out of the box on her desk and breaking it in half so they could share it.

Then Alya and Marinette following the Stoneheart clones to get footage for Alya’s new blog.

The next image, however, wasn’t one of Alya’s memories. It was one of Marinette’s. It was a memory of Marinette pulling a wooden box out of Alya’s bag and opening it to reveal a pair of earrings.

A pair of red earrings with five black spots that Alya would recognize anywhere, paired with a small red creature that looked like a kwami.

There was a flash of pink light, and Ladybug replaced Marinette in the memory. Alya gasped.

“Surprised? Marinette has always been Ladybug, but she almost gave it up. You were the reason she didn’t. You made her feel brave,” Queen of Hearts explained emotionlessly as Alya watched her best friend leap into battle to save her.

“She trusted you,” Queen of Hearts continued as the scene changed. Now Alya watched as Ladybug gave the Fox miraculous to her for the first time to help when her sisters were akumatized. They fought side by side, with Alya never once imagining that her best friend thought so highly of her that she made her a hero.

“But you didn’t trust her,” Queen of Hearts said. Her voice had turned cold and sharp as the scene changed again. This time, it was the day Lila came back to school and Marinette begged her to believe Lila was lying to them. Alya winced as she told Marinette she had to check her sources.

_How could I have said that?_

“How could you have said that is right, Alya. How dare you tell Marinette to check her sources when you refuse to do the same?” The scene changed again, this time to a montage of the truth behind all of Lila’s lies. Lila never went to Achu, never met Prince Ali or Jagged Stone, and never even left her room the entire time she was absent from school. Lila never had tinnitus. Lila was never friends with Ladybug. The only reason Ladybug ever brought her up the Eiffel Tower was when Lila was akumatized and was defeated there. In hindsight, all of those lies were incredibly easy to disprove, but Alya just never bothered to try.

“You are the reason Marinette wasn’t brave enough to fight the rumors surrounding the photographs, Alya Césaire. Where you once made Marinette feel brave, you made Ladybug feel scared.” Another scene change, this one to that morning. Alya watched as she yelled at Marinette despite her insistence that she had nothing to do with the photographs. Alya didn’t even have to pause to realize that Marinette had been telling the truth. The vision followed Marinette as she ran off crying, and Alya watched Lila admit to coercing someone else into taking the photos and return the phone that she stole. She watched as Marinette’s kwami, Tikki, tried to calm her down. She felt Marinette’s helplessness, how hurt and betrayed she had felt like a punch to the gut. When the akuma landed in the Best Friends Forever charms, she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“How can Marinette ever trust you again?” Queen of Hearts whispered inside Alya’s head. It echoed in her mind as the scene changed to another one Alya hadn’t known about, another one where Lila confronted Marinette in the bathroom and threatened her, almost causing Marinette to be akumatized. “You sided with a stranger over your so-called best friend. She never would have done that to you. And yet at every turn, you believed Lila instead.”

The scene switched from Lila threatening to take all of Marinette’s friends away to Lila manipulating everyone. She convinced the entire class that Marinette was only bullying her because she wanted attention. She told people she saw Marinette go out with random guys almost every other weekend because Adrien wouldn’t pay attention to her. Alya had questioned that lie, since she thought Marinette would have told her if she was going on dates. Lila had seen Marinette walking alone outside one night, so she convinced Alya to ask Marinette where she was during the most recent date. Marinette couldn’t tell Alya where she really was since she was only out because of an akuma fight she seemingly had no reason to be at and her transformation had run out before she made it home, so she'd had to lie and say she was home all night. Alya had seen through Marinette’s lie and came to the conclusion that Lila must have been telling the truth.

“You let Lila convince you that every time your best friend was late, busy, or missing was just a ploy to get people to notice her,” Queen of Hearts scolded. “You believed her when she said Marinette sent the photographs for attention. You believed her when she said Marinette would try to falsely accuse her of sending the photographs if she didn’t like the attention she was getting. She made you forget everything you knew about Marinette and in less than two hours after the photos were sent, you agreed with Lila. You believed her lies.”

Alya was shown a brief scene of how Lila stole Marinette’s phone and found a girl with black hair and brown eyes to take the photos. When her eyes were covered and her hair was in pigtails, she looked enough like Marinette that the photos were believable. Alya felt like she was going to be sick.

“You messed up, Alya. Big time. Do you honestly think you can ever find a way out of this? A way to _start over_?” Queen of Hearts asked as she looped the visions back to the start. “How can Marinette ever trust you again?”

That question repeated itself over and over and over again as the vision looped faster and faster to slowly drive Alya insane.

_“How can Marinette **ever** trust you again?”_

~*~*~*~

Adrien could still hear the screams from the courtyard as he reached the bathroom, which he was relieved to find was empty. Plagg zipped out of his pocket as soon as the door shut behind them.

“That didn’t sound good,” Plagg commented.

“It wasn’t,” Adrien said as he started to pace. “Poor Marinette. I really thought she would be able to fight Hawkmoth’s control…she’s always so positive! I can’t believe Ladybug and I have to fight her…”

“Wait, you said the akuma is Marinette?” Plagg asked. “As in, your friend with the pigtails whose family owns the bakery and confessed to you on her balcony Marinette?”

“Yes, that Marinette,” Adrien said. “Were you not listening to everything that went down once we got to school?”

“Kid, unless you’re talking to me, I only listen when it involves cheese, gossip, or people screaming,” Plagg said. “This really isn’t good.”

“I know. With how much it took for Marinette to be akumatized, she’s probably going to be a really powerful akuma,” Adrien said. “And it’s not like I blame her…I may not know what really happened but I shouldn’t have given her such bad advice. Maybe if I had tried to help her prove Lila wasn’t being honest, this wouldn’t have happened. But we’ll fix this and Ladybug will purify the akuma and then everything will go back to normal. Plagg, claws out!”

A green light filled the bathroom for two seconds, and as soon as it faded, Chat Noir turned to run back out the door to the fight. He did not expect to come face to face with a small red creature with big blue eyes.

“Ladybug can’t help you today,” the kwami said before Chat had even processed that was what the creature was.

“What?” Chat asked.

“I’m Tikki, Ladybug’s kwami. The akuma got her and I couldn’t help her and one of the last things she said before the transformation was to tell me to come tell you she wouldn’t be able to fight,” Tikki said.

“Has Ladybug gone to school with me this whole time?” Chat asked quietly, scanning through the list of students who had been in the courtyard that morning. If Ladybug’s kwami was here, she must not have been transformed when Queen of Hearts appeared in the courtyard.

“Chat Noir, this is not the time for that! Unless you can get Chloe away from the akuma, you’re on your own in this fight,” Tikki said.

“This is a catastrophe. I should have been the one Queen of Hearts hit, not Ladybug. I have to fix this,” Chat said. He attempted to duck around Tikki to get to the door, but she just moved to block his way.

“You can’t go out the door. The akumas minions will likely be rounding up the students that escaped the courtyard,” Tikki urged.

“Like me,” Chat nodded. He ran over to the window and used his baton to knock it open. “Don’t worry, Tikki. I’ll have Ladybug back to normal in no time. As soon as I’ve gotten her away from the akuma’s control, she can transform to fix all of this. Queen of Hearts may prove to be a furmidable enemy, but she’s nothing this cat can’t handle!”

“Good luck, Chat Noir!” Tikki called. Chat waved and leapt out the window just as the door burst open and the Eight of Hearts walked in, clearly looking for Adrien. Tikki barely managed to phase through the wall in time to hide. She flew to where she had stashed Marinette’s Miraculous to hide there until Chat had broken the akumatized object. Maybe she should have told him what it was…

“You’re going to need it…”

~*~*~*~

Alya had given up trying to fight the visions Queen of Hearts had forced into her mind after what felt like hours. There was no point. The Queen of Hearts had put all of her mistakes under a microscope and forced her to face them. It was as if every time she tried to fight, Queen of Hearts restarted the loop and forced Alya to watch all over again with louder, harsher commentary. She was going mad.

“It’s too bad I can’t trust you to be my soldier, Alya. You just aren’t loyal enough, and neither are your teammates,” the Queen of Hearts said. “Only one punishment is severe enough to match the crimes you have committed.”

The arms that had been holding Alya hostage let go, dropping her rather unceremoniously to her knees on ground that felt more like grass than the pavement that should have filled the courtyard. She didn’t bother opening her eyes to investigate, nor did she think about standing up to fight back. How could she, when the way she had betrayed Marinette was still flashing in her mind's eye? She sensed someone land on their knees next to her and heard a voice that sounded like Chloe’s cry out as she fell seconds later. Nino and Chloe must be facing judgement as well. The Queen of Hearts laughed coldly before announcing their punishment for all to hear.

“Off with their heads.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a headcanon that Marinette's akuma powers will be related to kissing when she finally gets akumatized in the show, so I drew from Zombizou's powers.
> 
> Also I kind of feel like the more upset/emotional people are, the stronger they are as an akuma which would explain why some akumas are stronger than others. For example, Collector, Catalyst, and Chameleon who chose to become akumas without having strong emotions to prey on (lol, all of their names start with C for choice) weren't objectively as powerful/successful as someone like Timebreaker, Volpina, Lady Wifi, or Dark Owl who were extremely emotional before the butterfly hit them. Catalyst was strong, but her power was to boost other people's powers which is kind of useless if she's on her own. Collector was decent but his book ran out of pages like??? Gabriel literally could have made himself unstoppable and decided that he was going to give himself a self-destruct button that the heroes could exploit. And Chameleon had to get close enough to kiss people and wasn't very good at pretending to be whoever she was impersonating so...okay I'm done XD
> 
> Bonus question: does anyone know why the cards I specified were chosen?
> 
> I'm going to work on updates for my other WIPs before I get out another chapter of this one, namely Miraclasse and You Can Count on Me, so keep an eye out for those hopefully before this weekend. (=^.^=)


	3. Off with Their Heads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So, this one took a while, but it's also on the longer side of my chapters so I hope that makes up for it. I'm going to put the meanings of the cards in the end note for anyone who is curious (it's a really long endnote, lol, I'm sorry but it was either going at the beginning or the end, so I chose the end). 
> 
> Also, I read your comments (and responded to them, so you guys know that already) and I know a lot of you were expecting Kagami and Marc and some of the other side characters to show up in this fic, but they just don't have a purpose in the story I'm telling. I tried. I thought of every possible way I could add them in and none of them worked right. I even added them in to transform them into a playing card and then couldn't find a place to do that for what I wanted to do with Kagami's card, so I'm JK Rowling it and just telling you: they turned into cards in the last chapter, and it's safe to assume that everyone who wasn't explicitly mentioned (so, Adrien, Alya, Nino, Chloe, and Lila) were turned into cards the first time around. I'm sorry. It just felt too forced otherwise.
> 
> Minor content warning for this chapter, it does get a little gory at the end, and there is some discussion of character deaths. I really hope it isn't too much, and I tried to keep it as minimal as possible, but the chapter is titled "Off with Their Heads" so...I apologize in advance if it was too much.
> 
> On that _cheerful_ note, I hope you're ready for this chapter! Enjoy!

Lila watched in morbid fascination as Alya, Nino, and Chloe started crying almost as soon as the Queen of Hearts’ kiss touched their cheeks. Nino was arguing with someone Lila couldn’t hear, apparently trying to defend himself against whatever the whispers were telling him. Chloe was staring at nothing, her eyes wide in shock as a few stray tears stained her cheeks with her mascara. Alya kept her eyes squeezed shut, shaking her head fiercely. She was holding back sobs, repeatedly trying to insist she “didn’t know” and that she was “sorry” for whatever the Queen of Hearts was blaming her for. 

Interestingly enough to Lila, Queen of Hearts wasn’t even paying attention to them. As soon as she had blown her kiss, she started twirling her scepter, which started to glow the more she twirled it. The smile on her face unnerved Lila, who couldn’t understand what her deranged former classmate had to smile about. The scepter glowed brighter and brighter, forcing Lila to shut her eyes against the blinding red light. When she opened her eyes, Lila saw that the courtyard had been transformed into a wildly overgrown garden. The pavement was replaced with grass. Giant flowers towered over the walls and vines covered all of the doors. Bushes with white roses covered the benches and trees sprouted out of nowhere. Lila peered up through the gaps between the flowers and trees and could see Queen of Hearts had ordered her Suit of Clubs soldiers to guard the roof when they found no hidden students, presumably to wait for Ladybug and Chat Noir to appear. She turned her attention back to the Queen and realized the Suit of Hearts had returned from the locker room with no prisoners and were standing behind their Queen to await further orders. When Queen of Hearts noticed this, she ordered the Seven and Eight of Hearts to step forward.

“Where is Adrien? You were sent in there to retrieve him. Why have you failed me?” she demanded. A frown marred her expression and her blue eyes were like ice as they bored into the cards.

“There was no one in there, my Queen!” the cards protested in unison. Lila couldn’t identify their voices, and their features were completely inhuman, designed to be perfectly uniform with the others of their suit, so Lila had no clue who they were, or if they were even from her class.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Queen of Hearts said, tapping her scepter against her chin. “I know I saw him run in there to hide, so where could that mouse have scampered off to?”

Just then, Alya let out a heart-wrenching scream, sounding for all the world like she had gone insane. The heart mark on her cheek cracked in half, followed quickly by Nino’s and Chloe’s marks. Queen of Hearts smirked and waved off the Eight of Hearts, sufficiently distracted for the moment.

“That didn’t take long at all,” Queen of Hearts said with a wicked smile, “though, for them it felt like forever, I’m sure. After all, sometimes forever is just one second.”

She motioned for the soldiers to let her friends go. The cards in question unceremoniously dropped them into the grass, where they didn’t bother moving. Their heads were bowed, and Alya’s hair parted against her neck and fell forward, creating a curtain to cover her face. Chloe’s ponytail swung over one shoulder. Nino’s hat, by some miracle, stayed on, but the Seven of Diamonds that had been holding him pulled his headphones off of his neck and dropped them on the ground next to him.

“It’s too bad I can’t trust you three to be my soldiers. You just aren’t loyal enough,” the Queen of Hearts said. “Only one punishment is severe enough to match the crimes you have committed.”

She nodded to the Four and Seven of Diamonds, who were by her side moments later. The Seven of Diamonds sheathed their sword and took the Queen’s scepter from her when she offered it. Then the Queen turned to the Four of Diamonds, who presented his sword to her without question. She took it and moved to stand near Alya. Her order was clear and echoed through the sudden, tense silence that fell over the courtyard.

“Off with their heads!”

~*~*~*~

Chat Noir landed on a nearby rooftop and looked at the school in shock. It seemed as though he had barely escaped from the locker room in time. Flowers as tall as trees had grown up over the walls, and giant playing cards with helmets and weapons lined the rooftop. They were standing guard, likely waiting for him and Ladybug to arrive. Chat scanned the skyline reflexively, hoping to see a familiar flash of red before remembering that wasn’t going to happen.

_Right, Ladybug is under the akuma’s control. I have to help her,_ Chat thought, pacing the roof anxiously while trying to make sure he was still hidden. _Should I go find Master Fu and get help? I could get the Bee Miraculous for Chloe, or maybe something for Nino or Kagami? They’d pick up on this stuff pretty quickly…but which ones would I even get? Ladybug is always the one to choose the new heroes, and she knows more about the Miraculouses than I do…but surely Master Fu and Plagg could help me choose._

Chat heard a scream followed by a very tense silence. He was tempted to just fight through the cards to get back to the courtyard to investigate, but there were a lot of cards and he was alone. Getting caught early on wouldn’t help Ladybug. He thought about landing in the flowers instead, but he had no idea what they could do to him. He didn’t even know what Marinette’s akuma was capable of since he had run off to transform so quickly. His decision was made for him when he faintly heard the Queen of Hearts’ voice drift out over the rooftop to him.

“Off with their heads!”

Within seconds, Chat had extended his baton and vaulted over to the school. He managed to land between two playing cards who had turned their backs and reassessed the situation as they turned around to attack him. It was worse than he’d expected. The school grounds were crawling with the giant playing cards and there was nowhere for him to land where he wouldn’t immediately be attacked. Alya, Chloe, and Nino were on their knees next to the Queen, who was holding a sword above them, clearly priming herself to cut off their heads. Lila was being held tightly by the Queens of Diamonds and Clubs nearby. He turned his attention back to the fight at hand just in time to avoid the ax one of the playing cards had just swung at him. He just wanted to subdue the two that were attacking him and save his friends from Queen of Hearts, but the other cards on the roof had started to notice him and were running towards them to join the fight.

“Now would be a really good time for Ladybug to show up,” Chat muttered, looking around for any kind of an escape route before it was too late.

~*~*~*~

Down in the courtyard, it seemed that no one had noticed Chat Noir’s arrival. Perhaps the playing card soldiers had, but everyone else found themselves unable to look away from the impending execution. 

“Now, I suppose I should have an order or some sort of method to this madness, shouldn’t I?” Queen of Hearts asked, raising her sword and holding it over Alya’s neck.

“One to be a murderer,” Queen of Hearts said, thinking about how Alya had been the final blow that had cut down Marinette and made room for the Queen. Queen of Hearts focused on her former self’s pain and swung the sword down in one smooth motion. Someone screamed, but Queen of Hearts didn’t care enough to find out who it was. Just as the edge of the sword touched the back of Alya’s neck, there was a blinding flash of blood red light. It filled the courtyard and when it faded, Alya was gone. There were more screams, but Queen of Hearts simply moved on to Nino.

“One to be a martyr,” she said, a pang of regret in the back of her mind. Nino had wronged her, but he and Marinette had been friends for years…the last remaining part of Marinette warned that he didn’t deserve this, he just hadn't known what to do, but as Ladybug, Queen of Hearts knew he would just find a way to get the turtle miraculous and stop her. She couldn’t have that. This had to happen. She swung the sword in another smooth arc, and just like with Alya, as soon as the blade touched his neck, he disappeared in a flash of red light. Someone was crying and someone was screaming, but whether it was one person or multiple or from fear or pain or rage, the Queen did not know. Nor did she care to know. She ignored them and moved on to Chloe.

“One to be a monarch,” she declared. Chloe was the _Queen Bee_ of Paris, not that she really deserved it. She had stolen the Miraculous, revealed her identity, and then refused to return it when Ladybug confronted her. Marinette had given her chance after chance to do better and be worthy of her Miraculous, but she had never taken it. The Queen of Hearts was done with second chances. It was time someone stole the title of Queen back from the bully, and history declared that be done as efficiently as possible. She swung her sword, there was a flash of light, and Chloe Bourgeois vanished. This time, there was one scream, and it was clearly full of rage. Queen of Hearts turned calmly to see Chat Noir land next to her, breathing heavily. His face was contorted in anger.

“And one to go mad,” Queen of Hearts said. She smiled at her partner, but it was all wrong. It was too sharp to be happy but too soft for anger, and when paired with the insanity flashing in her painfully familiar blue eyes, it sent chills down the hero’s spine. “Hello, Chat Noir. You’re late. We have a very important date, you know.”

“Sorry, princess, but I don’t date murderers,” Chat growled, swinging his baton at her. She dodged with an almost practiced grace. When she landed, she looked down at the sword she was still holding and her smile melted into a pout.

“Do you think so little of me, Chaton, that you would call me a murderer?” Queen of Hearts asked. She glanced up at him, and he could see the pain in her eyes. “You don’t even know what happened here. You don’t know the truth, the way lies and tricks and illusions can cause so much pain, and yet you still presume to have enough information to call me a killer? I’ve never heard you call Hawkmoth a killer...do you think I’m worse than him?”

“I just watched you kill three people,” Chat replied, adjusting his stance warily. The courtyard was tense, and he couldn’t figure out why the cards hadn’t started attacking him again. It was as if they were waiting for something. Maybe this akuma wanted to fight him one-on-one?

“Did you? Not everything is exactly what it seems to be, Chat Noir. I did not kill them. I just needed them out of my way,” Queen of Hearts said, looking him directly in the eyes with an intensity that made him uneasy. “I’m asking you to believe me.”

“I cannot believe impossible things, princess,” Chat said. “I know what I saw.”

“I am a queen, Chat Noir. In fact, I am _your_ Queen, and I say nothing is impossible. See for yourself,” Queen of Hearts invited, stepping to the side with a sweep of her arm. 

The playing cards parted to reveal a long table set for an elaborate tea party. The teacups and saucers were stacked on top of each other precariously, balanced next to cakes that Chat swore he had seen in Marinette’s parents’ bakery. The table was largely unoccupied, except for three chairs around the head of the table. The figures in these chairs were slumped motionless over the table with a teacup placed next to their heads. In the seat at the head of the table was a girl with reddish brown hair and dark skin who was wearing a light blue dress with short sleeves and a pure white apron. She had a black ribbon tied in her hair like a headband, with the bow tied on top. To her right was a boy with dark skin, wearing a tall, green top hat with a red band wrapped around it. Chat couldn’t see his clothes very clearly from where he was standing, but it looked like he was wearing a green suit. Seated across from this boy to the girl’s left was another girl. She had long blonde hair that was pulled into two ponytails high on top of her head. She wore a mustard yellow suit jacket with white pants and black riding boots. Chat craned his neck to try and see around the back of her chair to get a better look at her face, but one of her ponytails was covering it. Instead, he noticed a little white bunny tail poking out at the point where the two tails of her jacket met.

“They’re just sleeping, Chaton, so you can relax. They should wake up soon, hopefully before the next event,” Queen of Hearts said.

“Next event?” Chat asked suspiciously. The fact that he still hadn’t been attacked was making him increasingly uneasy.

“What, did you think I was done? Oh no, kitty. There are still a few people who have to pay for their crimes. But now that you know I’m not a murderer, will you help me?”

“Help you? What on earth makes you think I would help you? This has to stop, Marinette. You’re hurting people!”

“I’m not Marinette!” Queen of Hearts screamed. “Marinette could be hurt. She could be betrayed, and she just let it happen with no consequences. That won’t happen anymore. I don’t want to fight you, Chat Noir. Please don’t make me.”

“You’re going to have to fight me, because I’m not going to help you,” Chat said. He lunged at Queen of Hearts, who just sighed and waved her hand resignedly.

Immediately, a team of playing card soldiers jumped on him. They pinned him down with a strength he hadn’t anticipated them having and hoisted him to his feet. Queen of Hearts gave the Four of Diamonds his sword and took her scepter back from the Seven of Diamonds, who then confiscated Chat’s baton. Chat attempted to struggle against their grip, but he was well and truly trapped.

“Such a shame,” Queen of Hearts tsked. “We’d make such a great team. Well, no matter. There will be time for that later. And I promise, as long as you don’t struggle, you’ll get to watch this next part too! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“You’re insane,” Chat growled. The Queen of Hearts just laughed.

“It’s about time you caught on, Chaton. We’re all mad here,” she said, her voice sickly sweet. “Anyway, I’ve grown tired of this. Bring forth the liar. It’s time for a trial.”

“Queen of Hearts, you have Chat Noir restrained! Take his Miraculous!” Hawkmoth’s voice echoed in her mind as the outline of a purple butterfly appeared over her eyes. Queen of Hearts scowled at the interruption. Chat began to struggle against the cards again, even though he knew it would do no good. He knew Hawkmoth was telling her to take his Miraculous, and if she did Ladybug was doomed…

“Do not interrupt me,” Queen of Hearts snapped. “If I try to take his Miraculous now, he’ll just activate his Cataclysm, like he did when you akumatized Anansi, which could kill one of my soldiers and then he’ll be free to attack me again. I have a plan that is guaranteed to succeed but you have to let me follow it without interruption.”

“But he’s right there! He could escape at any time! Or Ladybug could show up and you’ll be defeated! Just take his Miraculous and send it to me,” Hawkmoth ordered. Queen of Hearts stood her ground, and Hawkmoth tried to use force to control her. Pain coursed through her and she stumbled. The Four of Diamonds to grab her arm to support her. She steeled herself and a terrifying expression crossed her face.

“Do not attempt to control me!” she yelled. “My plan will work. I will bring Chat Noir to you. But you chose me to be your akuma, so you will let me do this my way. Now let me do this!”

“Fine. But do not fail,” Hawkmoth warned. Queen of Hearts resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“I won’t. And Hawkmoth? Keep your temper,” Queen of Hearts sassed and blew him a kiss. The outline faded away and her eyes focused on the courtyard again, a sly smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Now, I believe we have a trial to conduct?”

The Queens of Clubs and Diamonds who had been holding Lila dragged her to stand before Queen of Hearts. The Queen of Spades stepped forward and cleared their throat.

“Lila Rossi, you are on trial for your crimes against our Queen. How do you plead?” the Queen of Spades questioned emotionlessly.

“Not guilty! I didn’t do anything!” Lila insisted. “Let me go!”

“You will _not_ lie before this court!” the Queen of Spades snapped. She slammed the end of her spear against the grass for emphasis. “If you tell one more lie, we skip directly to your sentencing. Do you understand?”

“Fine! Yes, I understand. But I’m innocent, so there's no sentence to give! I will not be punished for something I didn't do!” Lila challenged. She was afraid, though less so after realizing Queen of Hearts hadn’t killed Alya, Nino, or Chloe. Plus, she had insisted that Chat Noir believe she wasn’t a murderer, so the so-called Queen wasn’t going to kill her either. “You won’t kill me either way. The worst you can do is make me sit at that silly tea party.”

“There are things I am capable of that are worse than death, Rossi, so I suggest you do not tempt me,” Queen of Hearts warned coldly. “Now, begin at the beginning, go on until you come to the end, and then stop.”

Lila’s eyes flashed red for half a second, and suddenly she began to admit to everything. The fear from earlier returned as she realized she was being compelled to tell the truth against her will, from lying about being friends with Ladybug to sending the photographs. She even admitted that the girl in the photos was really an Instagram model named Cassidy Li who lived beside the park outside the Dupain-Cheng’s bakery. Cassidy was an acquaintance of Lila’s who owed her a favor for coming up with a lie to help her cover with her parents when she stayed out with her boyfriend all night. She had just turned 18 a few weeks earlier but looked young enough to be believable as Marinette. When Lila had explained how easy it was to manipulate the entire school’s view of Marinette, Queen of Hearts silenced her.

“That’s enough of your jabbering,” she said offhandedly. “It’s time for your punishment.” 

Queen of Hearts made a show of thinking about Lila’s punishment. While she was thinking, the three sleeping figures at the table began to stir.

“What happened?” Nino asked as he slowly sat up. Alya groaned and shook her head.

“I don’t know, but I had the strangest…dream…” Alya trailed off, looking down at her blue dress in confusion.

“What am I wearing?” Chloe shrieked. “This is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!”

“Oh, excellent! You three are awake! And just in time, too. You’ll get to see Lila’s punishment for her crimes!” Queen of Hearts said. A bright smile twisted her expression as she turned back to Lila. “As the judge, jury, and executioner of this court, I say off with your head.”

The Queen of Diamonds was the one to hand over her sword this time, while the Four of Diamonds held her scepter. The Queen of Spades grabbed Lila’s hair and yanked her head forward. The Queens of Diamonds and Clubs held Lila still despite her struggling. Chat started struggling harder in an attempt to at least save someone, but it was no use. Queen of Hearts swung her sword in one clean arc, and this time there was no blinding red light. This time, the sword cut through Lila’s neck like butter. Her head came off and hung from the Queen of Spades’ fist by her hair. Alya, Chloe, Nino, and Chat Noir all screamed at the sight of Lila’s terrified eyes staring back at them blankly. The girl’s body started to convulse, so the Queens let her go and she dropped to the ground where she writhed and twitched and spasmed like a demon being exorcised. Her limbs seemed to grow, stretching the seams of her already ruined clothes to their limit before tearing through them completely. Grey and rusty orange scales grew out of her skin and a pair of wings erupted from her back, shredding what was left of her shirt and jacket in the process. They extended out, revealing that the grey and orange patagium covering her wings was tattered and useless. A long tail jutted out of her back, covered in large, dangerous spikes. Finally, a long, serpentine neck grew from the girl’s wound. It coiled and extended until it had reached a proper length and formed a new head, with hazel eyes and a brownish, rusty orange crest. The dragon roared fiercely, and the Queen of Hearts smiled as she turned to look at her former teammates.

“How familiar are you with Lewis Carroll’s _Jabberwocky_? Because you just met mine,” she said.

The Jabberwock’s roar filled the courtyard while the heroes looked on in horror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...too much? Just right? Not enough? Did you like the little twists I came up with? Did you figure out who Alya, Nino, and Chloe became when the Queen "cut off their heads"?
> 
> Before anyone asks, Queen of Hearts power is basically manipulating reality, mostly through her kiss but she can channel it through her scepter as well, so like she told Chat Noir, not everything is exactly what it seems to be. The things she shows everyone with her power is the truth, but take everything else with a grain of salt. It might not be what you originally thought it was.
> 
> Now, on to the card meanings!
> 
> Aces in general tend to mean new beginnings, or are the culmination of the meaning of the suit (so like the overall indicator of what the suit would mean).
> 
> The Three of Hearts (Ms Bustier) means evolution, improvement, and the end of a conflict or the start of a peaceful period. Ms Bustier always tries to keep the peace in her classroom and was shown to hold meditation sessions and find ways for the kids to avoid akumatization.
> 
> The Seven of Spades (Mylene) is about a lack of opportunism and the dangers linked to immobility. Mylene is almost always the quietest character in the show and almost never stands up to her classmates, except for Chameleon (but everyone was a little out character in that episode). It signifies short-term sorrows, though, meaning they’ll affect you now but won’t be a problem forever.
> 
> The King of Spades (Principle Damocles) is an old man with strict authority but also is an obstacle or someone who shares a common interest with you and will try to steal your position (like when he tried to become a hero in Dark Owl but only got in the way).
> 
> The Four of Diamonds (Nathaniel) is a mark of friendship and trust/a reconciliation with a childhood friend. Nathaniel is the only one who was honest when he apologized to Queen of Hearts and wasn’t apologizing out of fear for what would happen (though he was afraid) but because he genuinely never thought Marinette would do something like that and just didn’t know how to convince everyone else without knowing the true story. His transformation into the Four of Diamonds is her forgiving him and trusting him, which is why he moved to stand near her. He’s also the only Four of Diamonds so far. But it’s also about reconciliation with a friend who will tell you their secrets on an important matter, which is why he was the one to grab Alya.
> 
> The Seven of Diamonds that grabbed Nino is about negotiation and is more or less neutral. Nino tried to reason with Queen of Hearts. This one (and really the ones that went after people if their names weren’t stated) is more about the person it went after than the person that transformed into it.
> 
> The Queen of Spades that grabbed Chloe is “a hostile, lonely, and negative woman...she announces conflicts. The Queen of Spades will deliberately block the consultant’s (in this case, Queen of Hearts/Marinette) path in order to harm them. She is jealous and mean.” The Queen of Spades also likes to tell lies and bring attention to herself so she’ll be seen again soon. ;) (Again, it’s about the person the cards are going after more than it’s about who’s inside.)
> 
> The Eight of Hearts that went after Adrien predicts a love match and reveals the presence of a blond person which attracts the consultant (ie the person getting the reading, or in this case Queen of Hearts/Marinette).
> 
> The Queen of Diamonds is a powerful, wealthy woman that tries to force herself on everyone and in every domain. She is a bad omen and warns about the dangers of toxic relationships. She represents quick enrichment thanks to controversial means and is sometimes associated with sex.
> 
> The Queen of Clubs is a dark-haired woman who can be malevolent and can announce a form a jealousy by coveting your professional, familial, or romantic situation and may become harmful. She can be a selfish friend, a malevolent person with purely bad intentions, or a friend with whom the consultant shares many things. (This is the card Kagami turned into.)
> 
> The Seven of Hearts represents a blurry moment where the future seems uncertain and you are unable to make a decision. It also reveals inner pessimism and a lack of self-confidence. (This is Marc’s card.)
> 
> And finally, just for fun…in cartomancy, if the querent is a woman, which in this case, the querent is Marinette, the Queen of Hearts refers to a confidant. She reminds you that you have to talk about your problems to your friends instead of keeping everything to yourself. Even if you doubt yourself, you still need to express your feelings. The Queen of hearts shows that a very close friend or someone who deeply loves you will soon visit, give you some advice, and bring positive waves.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!!


	4. Will You Join Me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! First off, thank you so much for being patient with me. This semester has been really rough for my mental health and I just haven't had the mental energy to write the past few months, but the semester is finally going to end next Tuesday so I can start writing again then. (Meaning if you're waiting on Miraclasse or You Can Count on Me to update, they should be written in the next couple of weeks.)
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! I've been looking forward to it pretty much since I started writing this fic, and this one is important because the entire rest of the story pretty much hinges on what happens here...fun fact, there may be an additional chapter written at the very end of all of this describing an alternate ending based on one decision in this chapter, if anyone would be interested in seeing a different route I almost considered while trying to write this one.
> 
> There's also an image at the end of this chapter that I hope worked right...anyway, I'll stop now so you can read the chapter! Enjoy!

The Jabberwock roared again, stretching its useless wings in agitation. Queen of Hearts waved her scepter and a swirl of red sparkles cleaned up what was left of Lila and her clothes. Once that was done, the sparkles swirled around the Jabberwock’s neck before they vanished, leaving a heavy golden collar with a broken heart tag in their place.

“I think I’m going to be sick…” Alya whispered. Chloe and Nino nodded in silent agreement. They never thought Marinette could do…that.

Queen of Hearts paid them no mind and turned to Chat Noir with a satisfied smile.

“Well, Chaton? What do you think?” Queen of Hearts asked. “Are you impressed? Everything she ever said was just meaningless jabber anyway, so it’s not like I changed that much about her.”

“You,” Chat started, but he couldn’t get the rest of the words out. He tried again, but then the image of Queen of Hearts’ sword slicing through Lila’s neck flashed in his mind again, but this time it was Marinette holding the sword instead of the akuma and his stomach churned. He had to force himself to remember it wasn’t Marinette, but Hawkmoth had never resorted to such blatant murder before… still, he couldn’t help but whisper, “you _killed_ her…”

“You still haven’t been listening to me, have you, Minou? Not everything is what it seems to be,” Queen of Hearts asked, disappointed. “No matter. We’re late, you know.”

“Late for what?” Chat asked warily. The Queen of Hearts grinned brilliantly at him.

“I told you, we have a very important date,” Queen of Hearts said. “You really should get your ears checked, Kitty. All of those rumors about you having enhanced hearing while transformed must not be true…”

“He already told you, he doesn’t date murderers,” Nino spoke up. Queen of Hearts turned to him with a withering glare.

“You know, if everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does,” Queen of Hearts snapped. “Don’t you agree?”

“I don’t think—”

“Then you shouldn’t speak,” Queen of Hearts interrupted him. She waved her wand, and red sparkles swirled around Nino, Chloe, and Alya for a moment. When they vanished, Nino opened his mouth to say something, only to discover he no longer had a voice. He nudged Alya, but her voice was gone too. Chloe twisted around in her chair to glare at Queen of Hearts. Chat couldn’t make out everything she was trying to say, but it looked like ‘ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!’

With how well he knew her, he was almost certain that’s exactly what she was trying to say. Not that Queen of Hearts particularly cared.

“Now, Kitty, let’s see about making you a little more open-minded…” Queen of Hearts said.

Chat began to panic, knowing that if she blew him a kiss Paris was doomed, but also knowing he wouldn’t be able to escape from the playing card soldiers holding him. The Seven and Eight of Hearts were stronger than he was, and while he was tempted to use cataclysm to free himself, he didn’t know what that would do to them. He suspected the playing cards were his classmates and teachers that had seemingly disappeared from the courtyard, and he wasn’t sure Ladybug’s Cure could reverse the damage if he cataclysmed a person…

_What if Ladybug is one of the cards holding me?_ Chat thought in horror.

Meanwhile, Queen of Hearts watched intently as a flurry of emotions danced across his face. They both knew he couldn’t escape her soldiers without hurting them, and though he could be reckless, she knew he wouldn’t deliberately harm a civilian.

_If only it didn’t have to come to this…if I had more time, I could make him understand, but I don’t…this is the only way,_ Queen of Hearts thought, her lips twisting into a rueful attempt at a smile as she blew him a kiss.

The small red heart floated from her lips to Chat’s right cheek, landing at the edge of his mask gently.

Despite its gentle touch, the sensation of her magic brushing across his skin made Chat Noir thrash against the soldiers. He wasn’t even trying to escape anymore, just fight against the strange whispers crawling into his mind and echoing all around him.

“Easy, Chaton,” Queen of Hearts soothed. “This won’t hurt you, I promise. I just need you to see this, so you can understand. I’m not evil.”

“You’re an akuma,” Chat gasped out. “All of your powers come from evil and pain and suffering…that’s all you can be.”

“No, it’s not,” Queen of Hearts said. Chat’s vision swam, and suddenly he was standing in an empty clearing, with green grass under his boots and tall trees and flowers growing up around him. He whirled around and saw Queen of Hearts standing behind him. She was fiddling with her scepter to avoid making eye contact. He reached behind him for his baton, only to realize it wasn’t there.

“You can’t fight me in here. Not physically, at least,” Queen of Hearts explained. “I want to make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Chat asked warily.

“Just, listen to what I have to say, what I have to show you. At the end of it all, if you still believe I’m evil, I’ll give you my akuma and let you and Ladybug set everything back to normal,” Queen of Hearts said. “I want you to join me, Chat Noir. I need you by my side.”

“I can’t trust you.”

“Would you trust Marinette?”

“You said Marinette was gone.”

“Would I be trying to reason with you if she wasn’t still around?” Queen of Hearts asked. Red, sparkling light swirled around her, and the Queen of Hearts vanished. In her place stood Marinette, with dried tear tracks clinging to her cheeks and a familiar determination in her eyes. The only remnant of the Queen of Hearts was the scepter in her hands the ghost of the broken hearts around her eyes. “I’m not entirely the same Marinette you were friends with, and I’m not the Marinette that my classmates knew either. I’m done taking the high road when someone is only causing pain, I’m done being controlled, and I’m done suffering for people who won’t take me seriously and reduce me to nothing more than a middle school crush. But even through the akuma, I’m still me. And all I’m asking is for you to give me one chance.”

“Alright, I’ll take your deal, Princess. But you had better not try anything,” Chat said.

“I swear,” Marinette promised. She waved her scepter, and the clearing morphed into a familiar balcony under a starry night sky, with warm lights illuminating the two figures leaning against the railing. One had dark pigtails and wore a black jacket over pink jeans and the other had blond hair and wore a black leather catsuit with a belt for a tail.

“One time a supervillain fell in love with me,” the memory Marinette said. “Talk about bad luck.”

“Seriously. I seem to have bad luck in the love department myself,” memory Chat agreed. Chat blinked once, and then again when he remembered what day the memory was from.

“Is this the night Glaciator attacked?” he asked, turning to Queen of Hearts. “Why are you showing me this? What does this have to do with anything?”

“You’re in love with Ladybug?” memory Marinette asked, and Queen of Hearts gestured to her with her scepter.

“That’s why,” Queen of Hearts said.

“Why do you care that I love Ladybug?” Chat asked, frowning. “And even if it is important, everyone knows I love Ladybug. Why is this memory so important?”

“Because this is the night I realized you were serious,” Queen of Hearts said.

“You? You’ve gotten your heart broken too?” memory Chat asked.

“Yup,” memory Marinette said, her lips pinching together in a bitter smile. Memory Chat looked at her for a moment before reaching a hand out to her.

“Hey, come with me,” he said. Memory Marinette hesitated for a moment in surprise before taking his hand and letting him pull her closer. “Close your eyes and hold on tight, okay?”

The two leapt over the railing in the direction of Chat’s surprise for Ladybug, leaving the real Chat Noir and Queen of Hearts alone on the balcony.

“I don’t understand. Why is any of this important? Why were you so surprised that I was serious about her?” Chat asked.

“You’ll see,” Queen of Hearts said. She waved her scepter and the memory faded away, leaving them standing ankle-deep in a thick, white liquid in a small, dark crate. Memory Chat banged on the door of the crate sharply.

“He’s right. We’re done for,” memory Chat said.

“Not yet, we’re not,” memory Ladybug said. Realization dawned on the real Chat’s face as Ladybug turned away from the memory to address the villain outside the crate, “You win, Dark Owl!”

“How do you know about this?” Chat asked, turning to Queen of Hearts. “How do you know exactly how this went down? Only Ladybug and I know…what are you doing to me?”

“Chat, I’m just showing you the truth. My magic has ways of supplementing the truth with my own memories and the facts that I know, and I don’t fully understand it, but I need you to listen to me. I need your help, and I need you to trust me,” Queen of Hearts said, her voice overlapping with Ladybug’s own plea for Chat to trust her in the memory. He clenched his jaw and looked away, but Queen of Hearts reached out her hand and gently turned him back to face the memory. “Watch, please.”

He did.

Ladybug called off her transformation, and after a flash of pink light, Marinette stood in her place. Chat’s jaw dropped, and he stumbled back away from Queen of Hearts in shock. Seconds later, memory Chat dropped his transformation as well, leaving Adrien in his place.

“So that’s where my little dormouse scampered off to,” Queen of Hearts mused. Chat looked at her in shock and horror.

“You’re lying to me. None of this is real,” Chat growled. “Let me out of this crate, let me go!”

“Why would I lie to you, Chat? What purpose would that hold?” Queen of Hearts snapped. “Lying to you now would make me as bad as Lila. I need your help, and I need you on my side, but I’m not going to stoop to Lila’s level and manipulate you into believing me. I’m only showing you what you need to know, Chat Noir. You’ve wanted to know your lady’s identity for so long, and now you do! And your lady needs your help!”

“Help with what?” Chat snapped back. “You’re an akuma. Hawkmoth will give you whatever help you need. You don’t need my help. I’m supposed to break your object and set you free.”

“I have a plan, a plan that will end all of this for good,” Queen of Hearts admitted. Chat froze.

“What are you talking about?” he asked hesitantly.

“When he yelled at me to take your Miraculous earlier, when I stood my ground against him, I blew him a kiss and pushed my magic through the connection. Why would I do that if I didn’t want to turn him too? I needed to find him so I could get close to him and take his Miraculous away. He’s hurt too many people, and we have a chance to stop him, Chaton,” Queen of Hearts said.

“You’re an akuma, he’d let you near him anyway if you had taken my Miraculous,” Chat said slowly. “Why go to all this trouble?”

“Would he? Chat, when has an akuma ever gotten close to him? Dark Owl was the only one that came close to succeeding and he sent our Miraculouses to him using a drone. If anything he would just force me to send them to him using one of my soldiers, or he would force me to admit that I was Ladybug but that my kwami took the earrings and I have no idea where they are so I can’t give them to him,” Queen of Hearts said. “We’re a team, Adrien. I can’t go fight him on my own. If my magic doesn’t hold, or if he has the Peacock Miraculous to help him, I’ll lose. And my identity might still be safe, but without the earrings I can’t fix anything, and I don’t know what lengths he’ll go to in order to protect his identity. What if I fail, and he doesn’t just take away my akuma powers? What if I fail and he kills me? He’s killed people before who were only saved because I cast the cure.”

“I can’t—”

“Adrien, please,” Queen of Hearts begged, tears pooling in her blue eyes, the blue eyes he once fell in love with, the blue eyes that belonged to the friend he had promised to stand beside, both in and out of the mask. “I can make you my Cheshire Cat and give you stronger powers. You’ll have unlimited access to your Cataclysm and you’ll be able to disappear at will.”

“And I’ll go mad, just like the others? No, thank you,” Chat said, turning away from her.

“Did the others look mad to you? Do I really look mad? It’s all an act, Adrien. I have to make Hawkmoth believe I’m an akuma under his control,” she said. “Dredging up the memories hurts. Showing people the truth hurts, especially when the truth is that they’ve been hurting someone they cared about. And if some of them couldn’t handle it? That isn’t my fault.”

“What about Lila? You killed her!” Chat yelled. “You’re worried about Hawkmoth killing you when you killed our classmate!”

“Lila was hurting people, Adrien! She was hurting me! This entire time, everything she’s done has hurt me! She got me akumatized! She almost got me akumatized several times, in fact. I was just able to fight off the butterflies before. Chameleon should have been me, because she threatened to take all of my friends away from me, including you!” Queen of Hearts exclaimed. “But I didn’t kill her, no matter what you thought you saw. It was all just an illusion, the same way it was with Alya and Nino and Chloe. None of them got hurt, their appearances just changed.”

Chat looked at her warily, taking in every inch of her appearance. On the surface, she looked just like Marinette. The dark black pigtails that almost looked blue in the sunlight. Her bright, ocean blue eyes that sucked him in like a whirlpool when he stared into them too deeply. Her slender, athletic figure that didn’t quite match the idea of a clumsy baker’s daughter but made so much sense for someone who was secretly a superhero. The longer he stared, the more his mental image of Ladybug merged with the girl standing in front of him, until every fiber of his being was telling him to believe what she was saying. And yet…

“I can’t trust you,” Chat ground out, his heart breaking at the hurt that flooded Queen of Hearts’ eyes. “You’re an akuma right now, and I can’t trust that this isn’t some intricate ploy to get my Miraculous away from me, or that you don’t actually have Ladybug’s Miraculous and are just waiting until you have both of them to turn them over to Hawkmoth.”

“You think Hawkmoth is smart enough for a plan like this? The same Hawkmoth that akumatized a baby twice?”

“He also orchestrated the Heroes’ Day attack, and almost won.”

“How can I prove it to you? What do I have to do to prove that you can trust me?” Queen of Hearts begged.

“Show me something Hawkmoth could never know about, even if he was able to sort through our memories. Something that would seem so insignificant or so long ago that he would never think to show it to me.”

“The scarf,” she whispered. Her eyes lit up as she realized there was still hope. “You don’t know about the scarf, so how would Hawkmoth? If you think he’s controlling me, he wouldn’t be able to tell you about the scarf. He wouldn’t even know to look for it.”

“What scarf?” Chat asked.

“The blue scarf you got for your birthday. You thought your father got it for you because there was some mix-up and there wasn’t a card inside the box, but that was because I forgot to sign the gift!” Queen of Hearts exclaimed.

“What are you talking about?”

“I made you that scarf, Adrien,” she insisted. “I know you aren’t inclined to believe me but just…watch.”

She waved her scepter before he could protest, and they were standing in Marinette’s room. She was sitting on her chaise with a set of knitting needles in hand and a ball of soft blue yarn in her lap connected to them. There was music playing in the background, a haunting version of Once Upon a Dream. She was humming along quietly, seemingly lost in the repetitive, meditative motions of looping, knitting, purling, and casting off stitches one at a time until the yarn began to look like a scarf. She got through quite a few rows before an alarm went off on her phone, making her jump visibly.

“Are you okay, Marinette?” a new voice asked as Marinette silenced the alarm and rubbed at her eyes. A little red kwami that Chat recognized flew up to her.

“I’m fine, Tikki. I just lost track of time, is all. It’s time to go meet Chat for patrol,” Marinette said.

“You looked really relaxed,” Tikki said with a bright smile. “That’s your birthday gift for Adrien, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is! I only have a few more days to finish it before his birthday, and I’ve been so busy with school and Ladybug duties that I’m really behind…but I think it’s really coming together, don’t you? I wish I had time to make more than a scarf for him, but I don’t know any of his measurements and I don’t know if he’d even like anything I could give him since he could get anything and—”

“Marinette, breathe! He’ll love it! It’s a Marinette original, and you created it with love, so how could he not?” Tikki reassured her. Marinette took a deep breath and giggled anxiously on the exhale.

“You’re right, Tikki. It’s the thought that counts, after all,” she said, almost as if she needed to reassure herself more than anything else. “Let’s go meet Chat Noir. The sooner we get to patrol, the sooner I can come back and keep working on the scarf. Tikki, spots on!”

A pink flash filled the room as Marinette transformed into Ladybug and jumped through the trapdoor to meet her partner for patrol.

One wave of Queen of Hearts’ scepter later and the memory changed again. This time they were standing outside of the school. Marinette was hiding next to the stairs next to Alya, a box in her hands that was wrapped in an eerily familiar blue wrapping paper with a pink ribbon.

“You’ve been stalling all morning! Now’s the time,” Alya insisted. Marinette still hesitated, a look of terror on her face, so Alya pushed her out from behind the stairs towards Adrien.

“Um, he—hey!” Marinette stuttered, holding the gift behind her back where Adrien couldn’t see it.

“You were so nervous…” Chat mumbled, walking around the memory to see it from a different angle. “All over a birthday gift?”

“I didn’t even put a note inside of it,” Queen of Hearts said bitterly. “I was so focused on making the gift and making the perfect scarf and wrapping it perfectly that I forgot to sign the card, and then I couldn’t even get over my nerves long enough to give it to you in person. I don’t know how you ended up thinking it was from your father, but the presents must have gotten mixed up somehow.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked, his eyes unreadable for once.

“Well, that’s probably easier if I just show you,” Queen of Hearts said, speeding up the memory to the next day.

Adrien stepped out of his limousine wearing the blue scarf with a happy expression. Marinette gasped.

“That’s my scarf! He’s wearing my scarf!” she squealed excitedly.

“All of my hard work had paid off…” Queen of Hearts mused.

“Can you believe my dad got this for me?” Adrien said, responding to Alya’s comment on it and completely oblivious to the shock on Marinette’s face. “He’s so awesome. He’s been giving me the same lame pen for three years in a row.”

“Wow, I guess anyone can change. Adults can be cool when you least expect it,” Nino said. He and Adrien continued walking inside, leaving Marinette and Alya standing by the door.

“You have to tell him you were the one who knitted the scarf,” Alya said to Marinette.

“But he seems so happy about his dad,” Marinette said, shaking her head. “I can’t spoil it for him.”

“You just let my dad take the credit for that gift? Why did you let me believe that when he lied to me?” Chat asked.

“You were happy, Adrien. That was what mattered. The whole point of a gift is to give someone something that will make them happy. The scarf made you happy, even if it was because you thought your dad gave it to you. Ruining that for you would have ruined the gift,” Queen of Hearts explained. “I cared about your happiness more than I cared about getting credit for it, plain and simple.”

“And I never even realized…”

“Do you believe me now? Or do you really think I’m still just an akuma designed to manipulate you?” Queen of Hearts asked.

“I…” Chat started, then trailed off as he weighed his options. His brain was still screaming at him that she was an akuma and working with Hawkmoth, but his heart was louder now, and his heart was telling him to trust her. He knew Marinette hated liars and would only ever lie herself if it was absolutely necessary, akuma or not, and that showing him this wasn’t necessary. She could have just tormented him with endless images of all of the times he had failed her, or hurt her, or turned against Ladybug because of an akuma or his feelings being hurt. If she wanted to manipulate him into turning into one of her pawns, all she had to do was let her magic target his most vulnerable insecurities until he went mad. She wouldn’t have been so gentle if she wasn’t still Marinette, if she wasn’t his Lady. “I believe you.”

“So will you join me? Will you join your lady, and help her win this fight?” Queen of Hearts asked, stepping close enough to him to rest a hand on his cheek. He leaned into the touch and covered her hand with his.

“Yes.”

She smiled up at him, a dazzling, blinding smile that completely captured his attention. Everything around him faded away as he stared at her smile, until she began to fade away as well. Soon only her smile was left, and then that disappeared in a flash of pink light so bright he had no choice but to turn away. He felt a wave of magic wash over him, and then everything was dark.

~*~*~*~

Queen of Hearts opened her eyes with a proud smile. She had her kitty by her side again, and she could see a plume of blue smoke rising over the roof of the school. All she had to do was wait for the magic to finish its job and she could finish hers, once and for all. She glanced over at Chat just in time to see the light pink mark on his cheek break. Shimmering red sparkles emerged from the crack and swirled around his body, faster and faster until the pinkish-red light was almost too bright to look at. When the light faded away, her Chaton stood there, looking mostly the same until she stepped closer. His hair was fluffier, with light pink strands shining amongst his usual gold. Tufts of pale pink hair stuck out from the cat ears perched on his head. His signature solid black suit had turned into a deep plum purple that shone almost pink where the sunlight hit it, and all of his angles seemed sharper. Deadlier. Even his tail had a sharper point to it than it had just minutes before. The biggest change, however, was clearly in his expression. He smiled, wider than ever before, revealing the sharp fangs that replaced his canines, and when he opened his eyes, they were yellow instead of green.

“My Chesire Chat, how good of you to finally join us,” Queen of Hearts said, smiling warmly at him.

“You asked me to join you, so that is what I must do,” Cheshire Chat said with an unnerving, laughing lilt in his voice that chilled Alya, Nino, and Chloe to their cores. “One does not upset the Queen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that image worked right...I've never attempted to add an image to a chapter before so if it didn't, please let me know and I'll fix it. I'm worried you had to click the link and go to the tumblr version of this chapter, lol.
> 
> What did y'all think? Did this chapter surprise you? Did I answer any questions you had or just create more?
> 
> (Also, as for the Hawkmoth thing...I'm a fan of akumas who can potentially push their abilities through the telepathic connection if they wanted to...it's never been done in the show but it's also never really been considered either, so I decided that it could be and no one ever thought to do so before.)
> 
> EDIT (for like the 10th time): The image isn't working for me so if you're having the same problem, [here](https://mindfulmagics.tumblr.com/post/184277677388/by-wolfykit) is the link to it on my tumblr!
> 
> SECOND EDIT: It's still not working no matter what I try. If anyone has done this before and knows what code to type in to magically make it work, please help me in the comments. If not, the above link should work. Just in case it doesn't, try [this one](https://mindfulmagics.tumblr.com/image/184277677388). Until I can fix it, I'm going to take the code out of the chapter itself so mobile users aren't having to scroll past unnecessary blank space. <3
> 
> Third edit: Thanks to the wonderful Sienna_Maiu, the code is now fixed and the image is actually in the chapter the way it should be. There might be a couple of minor edits now to adjust the sizing a little bit for mobile users, but at least we have an image! <3


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